What year do you think Anne was born? I lean towards 1507. You?
i go back and forth on this, honestly!
gareth russell has recently been derided by a lot of the history fandom on here (i have issues with some of what he asserts in his work as well…at some point i’ll probably make a post about what i agree/disagree with within his bio on katherine howard, but some of the reasons given for the hate are just literally incorrect– i’ve read that he ‘defends henry viii’ when anyone that’s read his work knows that he hates henry, i’ve literally bookmarked henry-dragging passages in that book…theres a really unfortunate trend in the tudor fandom esp. of a popular blogger making an unbased assertion and everyone piling on that i try to avoid); but i still think his essay on why he believes the birthdate is 1507 is well-sourced and worth a read in this matter. another article summing up the 1507 argument can be found here– i also read the comment section and was interested in both sides given. the 1501 argument is summed up here, again the comment section is an interesting read!
personally i think 1501 or 1507 are possible, but i don’t dismiss the possibility that the birthdate falls somewhere within that range either.
on an offshoot of that (this is probably not likely, it’s more a crack theory of mine than anything); on maundy thursday 1536 anne gave £31.
i read in russell’s bio of katherine howard that if we had known how many ladies were attending katherine’s own maundy thursday that we would know her age– they represented every year the queen had lived traditionally. (i might find and include this excerpt later but atm i’m tired– from what i remember, and i finished the bio recently, this was the gist of it).
mary i participated in maundy thursday as well:
Mary I practised feet washing, giving alms and also blessing cramp rings and also carried out “touching for the King’s evil”, a healing ritual which could only be carried out by God’s anointed sovereign. In 1556, Mary “knelt down on both her knees before the first of the poor women, and taking in the left hand the woman’s right foot, she washed it, … drying it very thoroughly with the towel which hung at her neck, and having signed it with the cross she kissed the foot so fervently that it seemed as if she were embracing something very precious.” As the Queen was 41 years of age, she did this to 41 poor women and then gave them food, wine, clothes and a purse containing 41 pence.
therefore, i believe it is possible that anne boleyn was 31 in 1536, which would put her birthyear at 1505. this would make her around 17 years old at her debut at the english court, the chateau vert pageant in 1522.
now, jane dormer said about anne that:
But to come to her death… She was convicted and condemned [and] she was not twenty-nine years of age
speculation, but: it is perhaps more likely that she was off by two years rather than six.
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